You are viewing the page for Oct. 6, 2020
  Select another date:
<<back forward>>
SpaceWeather.com -- News and information about meteor showers, solar flares, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids
 
Solar wind
speed: 327.1 km/sec
density: 23.6 protons/cm3
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
X-ray Solar Flares
6-hr max: A3
2200 UT Oct06
24-hr: A5
1654 UT Oct06
explanation | more data
Updated: Today at: 2350 UT
Daily Sun: 06 Oct 20
The sun is blank--no sunspots. Credit: SDO/HMI

Sunspot number: 0
What is the sunspot number?
Updated 06 Oct 2020

Spotless Days
Current Stretch: 10 days
2020 total: 200 days (71%)
2019 total: 281 days (77%)
2018 total: 221 days (61%)
2017 total: 104 days (28%)
2016 total: 32 days (9%)
2015 total: 0 days (0%)
2014 total: 1 day (<1%)
2013 total: 0 days (0%)
2012 total: 0 days (0%)
2011 total: 2 days (<1%)
2010 total: 51 days (14%)
2009 total: 260 days (71%)
2008 total: 268 days (73%)
2007 total: 152 days (42%)
2006 total: 70 days (19%)

Updated 06 Oct 2020


Thermosphere Climate Index
today: 4.59
x1010 W Cold
Max: 49.4
x1010 W Hot (10/1957)
Min: 2.05
x1010 W Cold (02/2009)
explanation | more data: gfx, txt
Updated 06 Oct 2020

The Radio Sun
10.7 cm flux: 71 sfu
explanation | more data
Updated 06 Oct 2020

Cosmic Rays Solar minimum is underway. The sun's magnetic field is weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system. Neutron counts from the University of Oulu's Sodankyla Geophysical Observatory show that cosmic rays reaching Earth in 2020 are near a Space Age peak.

Oulu Neutron Counts

Percentages of the Space Age average:
today: +10.2% Very High
48-hr change: +0.2%
Max: +11.7% Very High
(12/2009)
Min: -32.1% Very Low (06/1991)
explanation | more data
Updated 06 Oct 2020 @ 1600 UT

Current Auroral Oval:
Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica
Credit: NOAA/Ovation
Planetary K-index
Now: Kp= 1 quiet
24-hr max: Kp= 4
unsettled
explanation | more data
Interplanetary Mag. Field
Btotal: 5.1 nT
Bz: 3.2 nT north
more data: ACE, DSCOVR
Updated: Today at 2345 UT
Coronal Holes: 06 Oct 20

There are no significant coronal holes on the Earthside of the sun.
Credit: SDO/AIA

Noctilucent Clouds The northern-hemisphere season for noctilucent clouds has ended. The southern season begins in November. Between now and then, Earth has no noctilucent clouds.
Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar
Updated at:
SPACE WEATHER
NOAA Forecasts
Updated at: 2020 Oct 06 2200 UTC
FLARE
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
CLASS M
01 %
01 %
CLASS X
01 %
01 %
Geomagnetic Storms:
Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm
Updated at: 2020 Oct 06 2200 UTC
Mid-latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
05 %
05 %
MINOR
01 %
01 %
SEVERE
01 %
01 %
High latitudes
0-24 hr
24-48 hr
ACTIVE
15 %
15 %
MINOR
15 %
15 %
SEVERE
10 %
10 %
 
Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020
What's up in space
       
 

Never miss another geomagnetic storm. Sign up for Space Weather Alerts and you'll receive a text message when auroras appear in your area. Aurora tour guides and professional astronomers use this service. Now you can, too!

 

THAT SUPER-BRIGHT RED STAR ... IT'S MARS: Today, Oct. 6th, Mars is having a close encounter with Earth. It won't pass this close (62 million km) again until Sept. 2035. The Red Planet rises in the east at sunset, shining almost three times brighter than Sirius, and stays up all night long. The view through a backyard telescope might remind you of Hubble. Don't miss it! Browse: Sky Map, Mars Photo Gallery.

AURORA SURPRISE: Auroras were not in the forecast for Oct. 5th. "We headed out with a small tour group with rather low expectations," says Markus Varik of Tromsø Norway. "Little did we know, we were about to get completely blown away." This is what they saw:

"The sky was filled with pinks, ripples, waves, dragons, angels, jellyfish, and more," says Varik. "Amazing evening and it lasted for at least a hour straight."

What happened? The forecast did not anticipate a crack in Earth's magnetic field. In the jargon of forecasters "BsubZ tipped south," opening a fissure through which solar wind flowed. The result was an aurora surprise.

Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

RADIO SIGNALS FROM MARS: How close is Mars? Close enough for radio reception. On Oct. 4th, amateur radio operator Scott Tilley picked up a carrier wave from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) circling the Red Planet. Turn up the volume and listen to the Martian Doppler shift:

Tilley is a leader in the field of satellite radio. Dead satellites, zombie satellites, spy satellites: He routinely finds and tracks them. "But this was a first for me," he says. "A satellite around Mars!"

It's not easy picking up radio signals from distant planets. NASA does it using the giant antennas of the Deep Space Network. Tilley uses a modest 60 cm dish in his backyard in Roberts Creek, BC. This week's close encounter with Mars set the stage for his detection.

"MRO's signal is weak, but it is one of the louder signals in Mars orbit," says Tilley. "The spacecraft has a large dish antenna it uses as a relay for other Mars missions. With the proximity of Mars these days, it was the perfect time to try."


Above: Scott Tilley's backyard dish antenna in Roberts Creek, BC

The signal Tilley picked up is a simple X-band carrier wave containing no data or telemetry. "Its purpose is to allow for Doppler tracking," he explains. "The rapid change in pitch of the signal is caused by the relative motion of the satellite and the observer. Using the Doppler shift, I was able to calculate the period and semi-major axis of MRO's orbit. MRO was about 274 km over Mars at the time of my observation, a result confirmed by JPL Horizons." 

Now that Tilley has detected one Martian spacecraft, he's eager for more. "I'm improving my station to monitor objects in deep space," he says. "Mars is a busy place and I'm sure it will produce many more interesting observations during this close encounter." Stay tuned.

Realtime Mars Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter

THE PINK AURORA PEARL: Inspired by the color of rare pink auroras, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus launched a pink pearl to the stratosphere on Sept. 25th. It hitched a ride onboard the students' cosmic ray balloon, and reached an altitude 112,205 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains of central California:

You can have it for $249.95. The students are selling space pearls to support their cosmic ray monitoring program. Measuring 9 mm in diameter, the Aurora Pearl is mounted on a 925 sterling silver infinity twist and suspended on a matching 17 inch long sterling silver chain. Each pearl comes with a greeting card showing the pendant in flight and telling the story of its journey to the edge of space.

Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store
All sales support hands-on STEM education


Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery
Free:
Spaceweather.com Newsletter


  All Sky Fireball Network
Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com.

On Oct. 6, 2020, the network reported 18 fireballs.
(18 sporadics)

In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies]

  Near Earth Asteroids
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time.
On October 6, 2020 there were 2037 potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
Asteroid
Date(UT)
Miss Distance
Velocity (km/s)
Diameter (m)
2020 SM4
2020-Oct-01
8.2 LD
7.6
10
2020 SU5
2020-Oct-01
5.4 LD
9.4
16
2020 RJ3
2020-Oct-01
15.3 LD
15.5
72
2020 TA
2020-Oct-01
0.6 LD
11.9
28
2020 SW6
2020-Oct-01
2.8 LD
2.1
6
2020 SN6
2020-Oct-01
2.5 LD
5.8
6
2001 GP2
2020-Oct-01
6.1 LD
2.2
15
2020 RZ3
2020-Oct-02
15.6 LD
13.3
37
2020 SY3
2020-Oct-03
16.6 LD
7.8
20
2010 UC
2020-Oct-04
14.6 LD
3.2
12
2020 RV2
2020-Oct-05
14.8 LD
4.2
26
2020 RR2
2020-Oct-06
16.3 LD
4.1
29
2020 RK2
2020-Oct-07
10 LD
6.7
49
2020 TB
2020-Oct-07
11.5 LD
7.8
41
2019 SB6
2020-Oct-07
11.9 LD
7.6
16
2020 SR6
2020-Oct-08
7.1 LD
5.3
26
2020 SX3
2020-Oct-08
4.4 LD
10.9
51
2020 RO1
2020-Oct-09
17.4 LD
3.2
30
2018 GD2
2020-Oct-13
16.4 LD
6.7
5
2020 RM6
2020-Oct-15
13 LD
7.7
38
2017 UH5
2020-Oct-20
8.9 LD
5.9
18
2020 SG3
2020-Oct-20
19.5 LD
5.3
34
2018 VG
2020-Oct-21
15.1 LD
6.7
12
2017 TK6
2020-Oct-24
17.3 LD
12.4
41
2008 GM2
2020-Oct-25
17.7 LD
3.6
8
2020 QD5
2020-Oct-26
10.1 LD
8.6
80
2020 OK5
2020-Oct-29
6.4 LD
1.3
28
2018 VP1
2020-Nov-02
1.1 LD
9.7
2
2020 HF4
2020-Nov-03
16.2 LD
2.9
11
2010 JL88
2020-Nov-05
10.5 LD
15.7
16
2019 XS
2020-Nov-07
15.4 LD
9.4
51
2018 VS4
2020-Nov-09
14.9 LD
10.1
25
2020 ST1
2020-Nov-14
19.1 LD
8.1
162
2019 VL5
2020-Nov-15
8.5 LD
8.2
23
2017 WJ16
2020-Nov-23
5 LD
4.8
49
2018 RQ4
2020-Nov-26
8.1 LD
7.4
15
2020 KZ2
2020-Nov-28
5.7 LD
3.9
10
153201
2020-Nov-29
11.2 LD
25.1
490
2020 SO
2020-Dec-01
0.1 LD
3.9
8
2019 XH2
2020-Dec-02
16.1 LD
6.4
6
Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach.
  Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere

SOMETHING NEW! We have developed a new predictive model of aviation radiation. It's called E-RAD--short for Empirical RADiation model. We are constantly flying radiation sensors onboard airplanes over the US and and around the world, so far collecting more than 22,000 gps-tagged radiation measurements. Using this unique dataset, we can predict the dosage on any flight over the USA with an error no worse than 15%.

E-RAD lets us do something new: Every day we monitor approximately 1400 flights criss-crossing the 10 busiest routes in the continental USA. Typically, this includes more than 80,000 passengers per day. E-RAD calculates the radiation exposure for every single flight.

The Hot Flights Table is a daily summary of these calculations. It shows the 5 charter flights with the highest dose rates; the 5 commercial flights with the highest dose rates; 5 commercial flights with near-average dose rates; and the 5 commercial flights with the lowest dose rates. Passengers typically experience dose rates that are 20 to 70 times higher than natural radiation at sea level.

To measure radiation on airplanes, we use the same sensors we fly to the stratosphere onboard Earth to Sky Calculus cosmic ray balloons: neutron bubble chambers and X-ray/gamma-ray Geiger tubes sensitive to energies between 10 keV and 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Column definitions: (1) The flight number; (2) The maximum dose rate during the flight, expressed in units of natural radiation at sea level; (3) The maximum altitude of the plane in feet above sea level; (4) Departure city; (5) Arrival city; (6) Duration of the flight.

SPACE WEATHER BALLOON DATA: Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 18% since 2015:

The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Regener-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today.

En route to the stratosphere, our sensors also pass through aviation altitudes:

In this plot, dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x.

The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners.

Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation.

  Essential web links
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
  The official U.S. government space weather bureau
Atmospheric Optics
  The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena.
Solar Dynamics Observatory
  Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever.
STEREO
  3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
  Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO.
Daily Sunspot Summaries
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
NOAA 27-Day Space Weather Forecasts
  fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong.
Aurora 30 min forecast
  from the NOAA Space Environment Center
Heliophysics
  the underlying science of space weather

For stratospheric potential wins you can play Megaways slots. Check out the list of sites from Lioncasinos for reliable casino brands that offer these.

   

To get the best views of the cosmos, check out the Phoenix Window Glass Replacement experts for all your window and glass needs

Spaceweather.com welcomes these supporters of science communication: RV Sales and CRAS, the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences and Windshield Replacement Phoenix and Plastic Surgeon Phoenix | Phoenix Personal Injury Lawyer | Phoenix SEO

   
Look no further to find the best real estate agency – Brett Cairns: RE/MAX Ocean Pacific Realty in Comox – for residential home sales
   
NASA Near Earth Asteroid Home Page
   
Chicago SEO Expert
   
Search Kelowna Real Estate Listings & Homes for Sale easily.
Find help on all Calgary Homes For Sale and Real Estate Listings. Great source for Edmonton Real Estate Listings & Homes For Sale

To find reviews of new online casino sites in the UK try The Casino DB where there are hundreds of online casino reviews complete with bonuses and ratings.

Get a bonus when playing at a new casino in the UK. The Genie got you covered! 

Looking for a new online casino? Try Casimpo the new site dedicated to making online casino simple, or check out the new Avenger Slots Casino and Slot Strike Casino Sites with over 500 online slots and casino games. .

  These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters!
  more links...
       
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips.
©2019 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved.